Expressions researched:
"Buffalo"
Interviewer: I think the first question is kind of basic, is why is everything always taped at all the...
Prabhupāda: Because we have got so many branches, they want to hear me, my singing, my speech, therefore they record it and send it to different branches. We have got thirteen, fourteen branches: one in New York, one in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, Vancouver, London, Hamburg. We have got so many branches.
Prabhupāda: No, I started my temple in 1967, first July.
Interviewer: In New York.
Prabhupāda: New York, yes.
Interviewer: How many temples are there now?
Prabhupāda: Now we have got six temples. One in New York, one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles, one in Boston, one in Montreal, and one in Santa Fe. And another one of our students has gone to Buffalo, he's on the professional, for starting another temple.
Interviewer: How many people belong to these six temples?
Prabhupāda: In each temple there are average about fifty people.
Interviewer: Could you describe your temple to me?
Prabhupāda: At the present moment, we have got fourteen temples: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Buffalo, Boston, and Montreal, and Seattle, and one in New Vrindaban. We have purchased about 130 acres of land and developing there, New Vrindaban. And we have got now a temple in London, in Germany, Berlin. And we are in negotiation with Florida friends and we have sent one of our representative in Hawaii. So we have got so many temples. Gradually it is increasing. And boys and girls, especially younger generation... My, amongst my disciples, the oldest disciple is thirty-five years old. Otherwise they are between twenty to twenty-five.
Hayagrīva: These are initiates who are strictly following. Of course, there are more and more people come to the temples. More people join us.
Journalist: How many temples are there?
Prabhupāda: We have got thirteen temples. Thirteen. One in this Los Angeles, one San Francisco, one in New York, one Santa Fe, one Buffalo, one Boston, one Montreal, one Vancouver, and Seattle, Columbus, and then London, Hamburg, in this way... Hawaii.
Interviewer: How many centers are there now?
Prabhupāda: There are six centers. Why six? Seven. Seven centers. One in New York, one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles, and one, Santa Fe, one, Montreal, one, Boston, one, Buffalo.
Interviewer: And do you spend a certain amount of time in each center? Do you yourself travel from one center to another?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I travel... Just like now I am this side, and from here I'll go to New York. Then I shall go to Boston. Then I shall go to Buffalo. Then I shall go to Montreal. In this way I travel.
Interviewer: And in the main, are the people who have gathered around you, younger people?
Prabhupāda: Yes. My disciples are all between twenty to thirty years. Generally they are between twenty to twenty-five, utmost, thirty years old.
Prabhupāda: Yes. You did not go to the airport?
Satsvarūpa: No. I gave the lecture that was cancelled at...
Prabhupāda: Oh. Lecture?
Satsvarūpa: You were supposed to give a lecture today, but because you gave a lecture last night in Buffalo, we cancelled it and I went instead.
Prabhupāda: So you lectured there? That's nice. Now you have to lecture. I will have to retire. (chuckles) I want that all my students now should be prepared. Puruṣottama, you sit down. You are standing. You come here. Sit down. When, at present, when we speak of past, present, future, we refer to this particular creation of my body. Is it not? Similarly, "never return back." "Never return back" means... What is your question? I... missing point. Whose question it...? Yes.
Puruṣottama: Lugdoos.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. All right. Take. Distribute little. Na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate. Just like Kṛṣṇa. He is the Lord, but He has nothing to do. He is simply enjoying with His friends, with Radharani, with cowherds boy, with gopīs. That is greatness. He has nothing to think, "How to provide?" (chuckles) That is greatness. He is taking the cows as a sporting. You see? And when He was called for killing Kaṁsa, He left everything, renounced everything. Aiśvarya samagrasya yaśasaḥ... Everything in full, so much love, so much everything, but at once, in a moment, He renounced everything, went to..., left Vṛndāvana, and all these devotees, they began to cry for Kṛṣṇa for the rest of life. And whenever Kṛṣṇa was reminded, oh, He will say, "I am very soon coming. Don't worry. I am very soon coming." (chuckles) You see?
Girl: Have took, Your Grace?
Prabhupāda: Yes. I have taken. You take. You know how to make lugdoo? Himavatī is good. (chuckles) She learned many things about... We have got another nice girl in Buffalo. I have given her name... What is? Sadā?
Pradyumna: Sadānandinī.
Prabhupāda: A very nice girl. Yes. Always chanting and dancing and always jolly. (chuckling) Very nice girl. You know her? No. She has recently joined. She is good devotee, good worker, very nice. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so nice. Anyone who comes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness immediately becomes beautiful in every respect.
Prabhupāda: All right. This South, North Carolina, they are also doing... (laughs)
Haṁsadūta: He wants to go to Palm Beach. Palm Beach is the richest place in the country.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. That's all right. So chant Hare Kṛṣṇa and everything will be all right. And Buffalo is also doing nice. Oh, yes. The students are educated circle. They are taking interest, both the boys and girls. And three meetings I attended. Every meeting was full, two hundred boys and girls. They were dancing, chanting, asking very intelligent questions. And Rūpānuga is holding class. There will be some examination of the students. They accept papers. Yes. Some Indians are coming from long distance. One Indian gentleman, he came to see me from, what is that place? Ninety-two miles away from Buffalo.
Himāvatī: Did you see Nauvanī?
Prabhupāda: Nauvanī is there. Yes. He is there still. He is also very good. He works very nice in the temple.
Hayagrīva: How can we get the people to join in? That's a big thing. We'd like to have the audience to join us.
Allen Ginsberg: It's an audience seated out there, huh? Let me see. How many devotees will be there?
Hayagrīva: Onstage?
Kīrtanānanda: Everyone here. More from Buffalo.
Allen Ginsberg: What I think might be a good idea is, would it be possible to have the devotees start on the stage, and then if it looks like the audience is not singing vivaciously enough, have the devotees go out and sing... Walk up and down singing?
Prabhupāda: When the audience joins, that will be very nice.
Allen Ginsberg: Can Peter get near one too? Can Peter get near a microphone?
Kīrtanānanda: Yes.
Allen Ginsberg: Okay. Well, that's a very good program then. What instrument, stage instruments, do you have? Do you have a harmonium?
Hayagrīva: They're from Buffalo. Oh, we have... We have two harmoniums.
Allen Ginsberg: I think we have our harmonium also.
Hayagrīva: We have three harmoniums.
Allen Ginsberg: Same pitch?
Hayagrīva: We'll have to check that tomorrow.
Allen Ginsberg: Yes. Let's check the pitch of the harmoniums tomorrow. I've been learning to write music. My kavi guru was a poet named William Blake. Do you know Blake?
Prabhupāda: Oh. Yes, yes, I have heard his name.
Hayagrīva: Gopāla Kṛṣṇa? Where is he?
Prabhupāda: He is in Montreal.
Satyabhāmā: And Malvani. Malvani, the old man.
Prabhupāda: Malvani, he is not disciple.
Satyabhāmā: He's living in the house.
Prabhupāda: Yes. He is living, and he is doing service. He is almost disciple. Yes. He came to Buffalo and Boston. But I don't think he can follow the four principles. He is meat-eater because his family eats meat.
Kīrtanānanda: I've never been able to figure that out, Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Kīrtanānanda: The Hindus, they think it is such a tremendous thing to give up meat-eating, and here we have been raised with meat-eating, and we have no problem whatever. To us it is nothing to give up...
Prabhupāda: No. There is no problem for Vaiṣṇava here in America. They are not trained. They are simply... Just like there are so many Christians. Practically they are not following. Similarly, these Hindus at the present moment, they are in name. Either Hindus, Muslim, or..., they are in name only.
Kīrtanānanda: There's no real substance.
Prabhupāda: No.
Prabhupāda: Recently one paper has remarked that "such an important man is going unnoticed." They remarked like that.
Dr. Singh: Here?
Prabhupāda: No. Where it is?
Mālatī: Boston.
Prabhupāda: Boston. Also in Buffalo.
Mālatī: Buffalo, yes.
Śyāmasundara: He was speaking in reference to the Pope. The Pope didn't acknowledge your letter to him.
Dr. Singh: Did he or...
Śyāmasundara: Did not.
Dr. Singh: His loss. When we have Kṛṣṇa, who needs the Pope? (laughs)
Prabhupāda: I may not think... (indistinct) He is the head of a very great religion, so I want (indistinct) cooperation, I offered my cooperation (indistinct). So I have to struggle with so many difficulties, (indistinct) and everything, handicap. Still I am...
Śyāmasundara: This... Words and films.
Indian man: (Hindi)
Prabhupāda: (Hindi) New York, San Francisco, Los Angles, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Montreal. Sixty-six all over the world.
Indian man: (Hindi with Prabhupāda)
Prabhupāda: Oh. Give immediately, on the (indistinct).
Devotee: (indistinct)
Prabhupāda: Give immediately. And you come to the Imlitala.
Prabhupāda: Yes, he is in Cali... His description is there in the last page, his photograph.
Pater Emmanuel: Oh, yes, I see. Vaiṣṇava, Manipur.
Prabhupāda: He (indistinct) his MS from Buffalo University and his Ph.D, chemistry from California University. And he graduated himself from Gauhati University. Very learned scholar.
Pater Emmanuel: Yes, yes, I see.
Prabhupāda: You are coming from?
Pater Emmanuel: Near Passau, say, I think five hundred kilometers from here, with train, yes. I am coming yesterday in the evening to Frankfurt. In the morning I came to here.
Prabhupāda: Oh. You can stay here. We have got place.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: I asked Kīrtanānanda. He said about one hour, twenty, twenty-five minutes. (break—new sequence in car)
Prabhupāda: Let us see what is the reception. (break) We have come from a different way. From Buffalo.
Kīrtanānanda: Yes, you had to come from Buffalo. (break) ...take to get to Buffalo?
Prabhupāda: Three hours.
Hari-śauri: No, only about an hour and a half.
Prabhupāda: Hour and half?
Hari-śauri: Yes.
Prabhupāda: No, no.
Kīrtanānanda: To the airport from Toronto?
Hari-śauri: From leaving Toronto, we left one o'clock, and we arrived at, it was about two hours. We arrived just after three.
Kīrtanānanda: Some devotees were there from Buffalo?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (break)
Kīrtanānanda: ...had a very nice place for you.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. (break) People are being kept in such an ignorant way that they do not care about sinful activities. They can do anything for sense gratification. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma (SB 5.5.4). Actually, there is no advancement of civilization. They are thinking, they are running on four-wheel motorcar, and the dog is running on four legs. What is the quality change? This is going on in the name of civilization, and people are kept in ignorance. Where is the advancement? Running by motorcar is advancement? They have no knowledge that there is next life, and "Today I am running on Ford car, tomorrow I may have to run like dog on four legs."
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And he mentions the situation in Germany, at least the devotees are becoming a little stronger now. Saṅkīrtana is going on nicely.
Prabhupāda: That's all that we want. Saṅkīrtana must go on.
Kīrtanānanda: Devotees here now Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: Where from?
Kīrtanānanda: Baltimore, St. Louis, about seven vans from the Rādhā-Dāmodara party, Buffalo, Cleveland.
Prabhupāda: Occupied by devotees?
Kīrtanānanda: Yes. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...is doing nice.
Kīrtanānanda: Yes.
Prabhupāda: He's a very good boy.
Prabhupāda: The proof was there.
Vipina: You said last night that actually they all want to dance, but they're artificially checking. (break)
Prabhupāda: Birth, death. (laughter)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: I saw Niagara Falls, Śrīla Prabhupāda.
Prabhupāda: I have seen.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: You have seen? How do you like it?
Prabhupāda: Oh, very nice. The water is very clean. Īśāna took me there when I was (at) Buffalo.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: It's the biggest fall in the world.
Prabhupāda: Biggest fall?
Devotees: No.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: No?
Prabhupāda: No, I have seen in Jabalpura, that is also very big fall.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "Prabhupāda, ācārya-founder, born Abhay Caran De in India in 1895, the founder, future founder-ācārya, spiritual leader of ISKCON, came under the spiritual direction of Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Mahārāja, ascetic scholar and preacher who had devoted his life to the spread of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Three years later, shortly before he died, Bhaktisiddhānta ordered Abhay to spread the Kṛṣṇa faith in the English language. One of the ways that Abhay, now known as Prabhupāda-'one at whose feet masters sit'-did that was to begin to translate the classic Vedic literature, but it was not until thirty years after he was charged by his spiritual mentor that he was able to make a trip to the United States. He arrived in Boston in September, 1965, a spry but grim-faced passenger of seventy years on the steamer Jaladuta. He had forty rupees in his pocket and a metal suitcase full of his books and translations. Finding his way to New York City, he set up a storefront temple at 26 Second Avenue in the East Village section. Gradually he drew a small coterie of students around him, mostly through his preaching in Tompkinson Park. As his movement grew, he found backers among his converts. Hare Kṛṣṇa centers were established in Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco, and an appreciation of Prabhupāda's Vedic translations by American university authorities, Columbia, Princeton, Yale professors among others, permitted the establishment of the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust in Los Angeles. The Trust launched a promotion of Prabhupāda's translations and original works under the logo of the Living Library of Transcendental Knowledge. Remarkably, in the face of a worldwide economic recession, the Trust's book and magazine sales reached nine million in 1975, up 34.5 percent over 1974. Some of this was due to the determined promotion of groups such as the hundred-man Rādhā-Dāmodara group which criss-crosses the country in six Greyhound-type buses and ten vans giving lectures and kīrtanas at college university campuses. Now eighty-one years old, Prabhupāda still works at his writings and the spiritual direction of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. His translation of Bhagavad-gītā, the Bhagavad-gītā As It Is, the most widely used in the Western world, is in great demand by professors of Indology and Vedic literature."
Prabhupāda: He has given advertisement for our books.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Ekala eka.(?) One man's conclusion is not good. Better consult with him. Then?
Satsvarūpa: Then for the division of the United States, for myself, for being editor of Back to Godhead, I would go to Los Angeles for that, Back to Godhead, but would also supervise the Northwest US zone, which includes Berkeley, California; Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, and the Dallas temple. Rāmeśvara Mahārāja would continue being the GBC for Los Angeles, San Diego, Laguna Beach, and Denver. Balavanta Prabhu would keep his same zone—Atlanta; the Tennessee farm; Gainesville and Miami, Florida; New Orleans and the Mississippi farm; and Houston, Texas. Rūpānuga would also keep his same zone—Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Philadelphia; St. Louis; the St. Louis farm; Ottawa; and Montreal, Canada. Kīrtanānanda would keep his same zone—New Vrindaban, Buffalo, Toronto, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Mahārāja was accepted as your permanent secretary, and therefore, for the vacancy created in his absence in New York, Pennsylvania farm, Boston, Puerto Rico...
Rāmeśvara: And Rādhā-Dāmodara.
Satsvarūpa: ...and the Rādhā-Dāmodara party, it was decided that he should keep the responsibility of being the GBC for that area. However, Ādi-keśava Mahārāja will act as special assistant to the GBC and take the on-the-spot responsibility.
Prabhupāda: That means he'll be trained up in his place. Is it not?
Dr. Sharma: My program is in doldrums at present. I am going to be here up till June. In June I intend going to Britain for some time.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: London?
Dr. Sharma: Yes, London.
Prabhupāda: So you see our temple there.
Dr. Sharma: Yeah, I have been to your temple in Buffalo. I was in your temple in Winnipeg, Canada.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Those are very small.
Dr. Sharma: Yes, small ones. But Winnipeg is all... But it was all right for such a small, but very well maintained, very well maintained. In London I haven't gone, because I stayed far away from the city.
Prabhupāda: We have got two temples in London. One in the city, and one in the border of London. That is very big temple. Seventeen acres of land. George Harrison has given us that property.
| Page Title: | Buffalo city (Conversations) |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti |
| Created: | 22 of Dec, 2011 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=20, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 20 |